Flip-flop circuits are used in semiconductor devices to maintain a binary state until directed by an input signal to switch states. A variation of the basic flip-flop circuit, the docked flip-flop circuit responds to input levels in response to a clock signal. Used in this manner, the docked flip-flop circuit acts as a sampling device which only reads the information off of its input line when directed to do so by the docking circuit. After reading the information, the circuit stores the information and outputs it on the output line. In all other instances of time, the circuit will not respond to input signals and will remain unchanged during variations of signal states in the input line.
Despite their usefulness, typical flip-flops have many shortcomings. One such typical flip-flop is the complimentary metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (CMOS) static master-slave flip-flop. It consists of two stages--the master and the slave. A data input to this conventional type of flip-flop has to travel through both the master and the slave to come to the output causing a large input to output flip-flop delay. In fast circuits, this delay is minimized by making the devices in the path large which in turn causes the flip-flop circuit to occupy a relatively large amount of space.
Thus, what is needed is a faster flip-flop that occupies less space.